Aside from the Digg buttons and widget generators that Digg recently made available as part of the preparation for the launch of its redesigned page, the social bookmarking site has also released a new iPhone app. And mind you, it’s a pretty cool and useful app that brings in all the Digg good stuff that we all enjoyed and have grown to love through the years.

In fact just a few hours after it was released, the new Digg for Â iPhone suddenly goes to the top of the iPhone Apps Store’s “news” category. Â We don’t have exact download figures yet, but the fact that it went to the top of the apps chart is an indication that iPhone users are digging the new Digg app.

If you haven’t downloaded it yet on your iPhone, now is the right time to do so. If you’ve loved Digg.com, I’m pretty sure you’d also love this Â Digg iPhone app. Why? You can watch the attached video above demonstrating the many cool and touchy features of the Digg app.

Digg for iPhone app lets you browse lists of recent content, search for the topics you care about and save stories to check out later. You can also join the usual Digg curation fun by Digging and burying stories and comments right on your iPhone. You know what’s great about this iPhone app? It interface well with the touch screen features of the iPhone. And if your scanning and browsing the highly active Digg storyline, you’d notice how easy it is to so by just tapping and swiping your iPhone’s screen.

Digg has just launched its new buttons and widget generator tool for publishers to easily integrate Digg on their blogs and websites. Â These newly improved smart Digg buttons and widget generator were launched this early to prepare publishers for the upcoming launch of the newly redesigned Digg.

While some publishers have previously integrated Digg in their websites well, the previous process however required customization work through the Digg API. The new button and widget generator can easily help you integrate as well as blend the Digg buttons and widget to your websites.

Now for some new features of the Digg button that you are about to create:

Buttons no longer take users to Digg, traffic stays on the publisher’s domain

Dynamic display of live Digg count – statistics have shown this increases likelihood of user interaction

Faster load time

Customizable look and feel – includes a new â€œmediumâ€ button size and an unstyled option so a publisher can create their own custom designed Digg button

Related stories from the publisher’s domain to users that click the button

All existing smart Digg buttons will auto-upgrade in the coming weeks – however, it is recommended that publishers review the new documentation for optimization tips

While Digg widgets also get the following new features:

Headlines now link directly to the publisher’s content with the Diggbar instead of the Digg permalink page

Customizable – more customization options without requiring publishers to use the Digg API

Tabs & columns – ability to add multiple tabs to a widget as well as make a double column widget

Thumbnails – by default a thumbnail is attached to each story when available

Fallback content logic by domain – if there is insufficient content to display, the widget has logic to backfill with relevant content from the same domain

It was certainly a busy year for Digg as it struggles to stay relevant in 2009 with Facebook and Twitter getting too much attention in the social media scene. But with the year coming to a close, one thing is for sure – Diggers were still alive and kicking all through out the year.

Digg’s user base increased to 40 million in 2009. Meaning more people are digging stories and making sure that intriguing stories get into the Digg headlines. And there were several enhancements as well on the social bookmarking site including integration with Facebook Connect, the launch of DiggBar, Digg Ads, Digg Trends as well as the revamped Digg search engine.

To help us in visualizing the top stories that made it into Digg’s front page, Digg.com has launched a cool, interactive visualization tool that showcase the top stories at Digg in 2009. Â You can check out the top stories on daily and monthly basis. The top headlines were given plus the number of Diggs those headlines received.

Clicking on each of the entries will bring you to the actual front page when the entries made it to Digg’s front page.

Go check out Digg 365 and be awed by this visualization tool. In case you’re interested to know, here are the top 5 stories at Digg in 2009:

Before Facebook started counting shares and Twitter started counting retweets, Digg pretty much invented social news. Sensing more mainstream services encroaching upon its turf, the geeky pioneer is not content to rest on its laurels. At a Web 2.0 Expo keynote today, Digg founder Kevin Rose and CEO Jay Adelson discussed new and future Digg features.

Are you a fan of Digg’s online TV shows – Diggnation, The Dig Reel, Digg Dialog, and Diggcetera? Â Then, you’ll Â be glad to know that Digg has rolled out a one-stop destination for all these shows – dubbed DiggTV.

DiggTV lets you watch the said shows from the site or you can subscribe to the shows in iTunes, Miro, Tivo, Vuze and Zune channels. [Read more…]

A new study by online ad network Chitika reveals two things we’ve suspected all along: Tweeple like news, and Diggers are nerds. 28% of all links clicked on Twitter go to news, while a whopping 57.38% of Digg clicks go to technology articles.

“I think you get a bit of an insight into the psychology of the different users of social networks. Twitterers want to be the first to know,” said Daniel Ruby, research director, online insights, Chitika. “They want to be the source of new news and new information, whether that’s a new product being released, or something that’s happening in the Middle East, or the latest crazy thing that Kanye West has done.”

The study does give us one surprise. Contrary to popular stereotypes of Facebookers, Facebook clicks don’t all go to inane crap. In fact, a third of Facebook clicks go to tech stuff, too. Facebookers are actually half as nerdy as Diggers.